Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday that he would confront his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the G20 in Brisbane next month over the MH17 plane crash.

There were 28 Australians among 298 dead on MH17, when it crashed over east Ukraine in July.

"I'm going to shirt-front (confront) Mr Putin," Abbott said during a media conference in Central Queensland where he was opening a new coal mine.

"I am going to be saying to Mr Putin, Australians were murdered. "

Abbott said he plans to tell Putin that Australians "were murdered by Russian-backed rebels using Russian supplied equipment ".

"We are very unhappy about this, we accept that you didn't want this to happen, but we now demand that you fully cooperate with the criminal investigation."

"There'll be a lot of tough conversations with Russia and I suspect the conversation I have with Mr Putin will be the toughest conversation of all."

Abbott said he will be seeking "an assurance" from Putin "that he and Russia will do everything they can to ensure that now, at least, justice is done".

"I don't believe for a moment that President Putin wanted that plane brought down.

"But obviously Russian policy has brought about a situation that caused this atrocity to take place."

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